Database Develop

[Q] Help! Device Locked Due to Abnormal Factory Reset

Hi all,
I am in desperate need of help with this AT&T Samsung Galaxy S5 that I found in abroad. Before I get chewed out with accusations of theft, I found the phone in a restaurant and gave to the staff who returned it to me after 3 days an no one had come to claim it.
Anyway, I have been trying to unlock it for use in Canada. I'm a bit of a noob, so please be patient Started with a commercial unlock code to SIM unlock. I received a "successful" message, so I assume it worked. However, I was told that AT&T locks other SIM cards from working on their firmware, so I began to try to flash and install a custom rom. I went to geohot's towelroot page and clicked the lambda. I think it did something. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to do factory data wipe from the volume down+power+home recovery screen. Now, I can't get past the initial setup which is asking for my original Samsung login ID, which I obviously don't have. In addition, I can't flash the rom with Odin or install off of external SD card.
Please help!!!
Thanks!
AK

Hi,
I have the same problem, anyone that can help?
Thanks

02wrx said:
Hi all,
I am in desperate need of help with this AT&T Samsung Galaxy S5 that I found in abroad. Before I get chewed out with accusations of theft, I found the phone in a restaurant and gave to the staff who returned it to me after 3 days an no one had come to claim it.
Anyway, I have been trying to unlock it for use in Canada. I'm a bit of a noob, so please be patient Started with a commercial unlock code to SIM unlock. I received a "successful" message, so I assume it worked. However, I was told that AT&T locks other SIM cards from working on their firmware, so I began to try to flash and install a custom rom. I went to geohot's towelroot page and clicked the lambda. I think it did something. For some reason, I decided it would be a good idea to do factory data wipe from the volume down+power+home recovery screen. Now, I can't get past the initial setup which is asking for my original Samsung login ID, which I obviously don't have. In addition, I can't flash the rom with Odin or install off of external SD card.
Please help!!!
Thanks!
AK
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Have you tried this thread yet? http://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=53454972&postcount=1 it should help you flash in Odin.

[solved] IMEI Recovery help! Lenovo K3 Note

For the past half a year, I have been using Carbon rom on my Lenovo K3 Note, and it was fine, until it started slowing down. So, I decided to change it to another rom (Nexus), and the next thing I know, my SIM card is no longer detected.
Turns out, the IMEI was wiped.
How would I go about restoring this?
The things I have done:
MauiMETA = Never detects my phone. Places it into meta mode, but the light never turns yellow. Tried on 3 computers, and had no success on getting it to work. For two of the three, I couldn't find drivers for mt65xx and CDC.
MTK Droid Tool: The option to change the IMEI remained permanently greyed out, and was never given the option to change it.
Official rom: Didn't work. Currently using it, and still the same error (Null). Tried factory resetting it, no change.
Engineering mode: Always gave me an error when trying to enter command, never accepted it.
IMEI.EXE: Everything worked, except the IMEI's never changed in my device.
Have tried multiple roms, multiple wipes, SPFlash, CWM (Even ended up installing it again because I wiped my entire phone with SPFlash), and pretty much every trick I could find.
I need this think working in 12 hours.
EDIT: Problem was resolved with trying "official" roms until one allowed me to update within the rom. The Update that was installed via Lenovo's bootloader fixed it. The finished product was that of an untouched phone; I had to reinstall a bootloader, root, and a new rom.

If flashing stock doesn't help, and you have no kind of backup of where the imei resides, you likely need a service center to hopefully help.
But know that any talk of manually inputting imei numbers is not allowed on XDA, as its illegal in most areas.
Good luck!

Darth said:
If flashing stock doesn't help, and you have no kind of backup of where the imei resides, you likely need a service center to hopefully help.
But know that any talk of manually inputting imei numbers is not allowed on XDA, as its illegal in most areas.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So it isn't as simple as entering the two codes under my battery into some location, and rebooting?
I'm currently in Europe, and have no idea how any of that works (Studying abroad).

RocketPenguin1 said:
So it isn't as simple as entering the two codes under my battery into some location, and rebooting?
I'm currently in Europe, and have no idea how any of that works (Studying abroad).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That talk is not allowed, as I said. Inputting numbers falls under tampering and is illegal in most areas, as I said.
So try flashing stock, if you can. But without some sort of backup, you may be out of luck unfortunately.
Please keep number inputting talk off XDA, or I will need to close this thread. :good:

UPDATE: So, I flashed another "official" rom, which initially didn't work. However, it did give me the option to upgrade, which I did. With that upgrade, the IMEI is back, and my SIM card works.
Thing is, the ROM is almost entirely in Chinese.
How would I change my rom without wiping the IMEI?

Please post the link to download the ROM you used.
I have the same issue and even service centers failed to attempt this.
Thanx and regards
Raju
Chennai

You can easily rewrite imei number using snwriter tool, google it.

P9(EVA-L09)-Settings missing: Huawei ID, Update Phone

Hi guys,
I've bought an P9 and wanted to get rid of the booting screen with the resellers logo.
So I thought I'd be smart, unlocked the device, flashed TWRP 3.1.1-1-eva.img onto it. Got an SuperSu-file and tried to install it...
I never got to experience the rooted version. Got stuck in a bootloop, somehow got out of it. Logged in, saw an green SuperSu-app, opend it and it saidthe device has to be rooted to use the device, ergo i failed to root it. [Forgot some steps here] and I found myself in another bootloop. A friendly guy suggested to flash these 2 files
[Link-Removed]update.zip
[Link-Removed]update_data_full_hw_eu.zip
which I did with dload. After that, I was still in a bootloop, but with WipeCache I was able to get myself back into my phone [hooraay].
The happyness-phase was a short, because i soon found out, that it doesn't have an keyboard (only googleVoice, should be fun to type in a wifi-password). Huawei-ID tab is also missing (usually located below Accounts), Update Phone, which was between Advanced Settings and About Phone is also missing, and bluetooth doesn't seem to work. That's when I noticed that I'm on NRD90M test-keys build.
After reading some threads here i downloaded rollback from huawei (for west-europe). Now I'm on C900B300 but all settings still missing.
Now I'm here crying for help.
Any suggestions? Please?
Ryan

You got to rebrand your phone.

movizdb said:
You got to rebrand your phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
do you mean, that i have to put the bootlogo back into it?
could be a meanie to do, because it's a swiss brand and I don't think that there's a version here for me to use.
//or do an OEM-Flash, which worked

Samsung: worst ever for a power user!

Today I got up real pissed with Samsung for being so restrictive around ROM flashing, rooting, flashing custom firmware or even stock firmware, so wanted to create this post to help anybody considering to get a Samsung phone to stay away from it.
This post is not intended to recommend any specific brand or model of android phone, but to recommend the exact opposite, which brand and model NOT TO EVEN THINK of purchasing.
This post relates to Samsung Galaxy S9 G9600 model which is Snapdragon architecture, but since Samsung is coming up with a bunch of "security features" I tend to think this may be the case for other models as well. I browsed all around XDA and other sources for guides on how to root and install custom roms, and it turns out Samsung manages to have limitations for EVERY step of the way.
Getting a few facts straight
Reference post: https://forum.xda-developers.com/ga.../rom-lineageos-17-1-s9-s9-snapdragon-t4093301
Ok, so there is a solid thread about a custom firmware and looks like several users got hands on it, but they might have been able to get passed though all Samsung security crap before it came out or before it got so tightened up. I'll list below every limitation I found:
OEM Unlock
There is a step where we need to tick OEM Unlock from the phone developer settings, it turns out Samsung has put a 7-day timer for this option to even appear listed to enable. If you do factory reset of the phone, the 7-day timer restarts. There are a few posts around on how to get passed this timer, but to me they were all crap, none of them worked. STRIKE ONE!
Bootloader unlock
After 7-days, we get the OEM Unlock option to appear, at this point you may think: Hurray!! .... WRONG! Now next step is to unlock the bootloader using an utility called CROM Services... And as you may have already guessed, did not work! I'm able to install the apk, but on launch it complains about wrong android version. (Tried with Android 8 and 10) STRIKE TWO!
There are some posts and guides claiming to be able to unlock bootloader by using fastboot utility, I can't reach to understand how, since fastboot commands rely on the bootloader to be previously unlocked (?). I least that is my understanding, correct me if wrong. Needless to say fastboot did not work for me. ADB lists my device but fastboot doesn't. There are a few troubleshoot guides around to try selecting proper USB driver from windows device manager, tried all that, tried a couple of ADB installations, fastboot didn't work.
Knox and RMM state
After some lookup in the web, Samsung incorporates some security features trying to prevent device theft and such things. For us power users this is in reality just a whole load of crap preventing us to get all the juice out of our phones.
Reference: https://www.goandroid.co.in/unlock-bootloader-of-galaxy-s9-plus-snapdragon/84688/
TWRP Recovery
Next step would be to flash a custom recovery such as TWRP with Odin or adb/fastboot, but since we are not able to unlock the bootloader in previous step, this is not doable at all. STRIKE THREE! OUT!
Fastboot utility doesn't recognize the device in download mode, so we can't send any commands to the phone.
Odin complains it is only able to flash signed stock roms, so since TWRP is not, we cannot flash it.
Rooting
Needless to say that if we don't have TWRP, we cannot flash the corresponding packages to root. Although this step may not be needed to install custom firmware, rooting has not been possible.
Stock ROM Flashing
Ok, so let's stay out of custom firmware - let's play around with stock firmwares. At this point, since flashing stock firmwares is kind of allowed by Samsung I was able to try out a couple from android 8 to 10 with Odin
Stock ROM Source: https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/galaxy-s9/firmware/#SM-G9600
But watch out! Once you get to install a specific build version, you cannot go back or downgrade to ROMS with previous Android build version. So now that I got Android 10 cannot go back to 8 or 9, this is probably because locked bootloader and unable to unlock. Here, Odin complains with FAIL! (AUTH) message.
STRIKE FOUR! EVEN OUTTER!
SIM Unlock
Ok, let's stay out of Samsung S9 G9600 model, let's crash it to the wall and throw it away to the garbage! Ok no, let's have it carrier unlocked and sell. Unlockbase is a well known and trusted sim unlock provider, I purchased a license to unlock by USB cable, but... GUESS WHAT! G9600 is not supported for unlocking operator network with this software... what a surprise!! I was able to apply for a refund and got my money back, so no worries here.
Note that flashing carrier free ROM does not unlock sim to use with any network operator.
I'll be trying to unlocking by code soon, as this is based on IMEI number, I may think this is independent to the phone model and edition, so I hope I have more luck with this option.
Conclusion
G9600 is a really crappy phone to mess around with. I may have ran low on luck with this specific Samsung Galaxy model since I got it as a gift, which is the latinamerican crappy edition. I wonder if other S9 editions and other Samsung models run with better luck than mine on this scenery... But as a lesson to myself, I will stay away of any Samsung smartphone in the foreseeable future.

OEM Unlock
The 7-day lock prevents stolen phones from being factory reset, leaving the thief with a phone permanently protected by your account. While a minor inconvenience, it's actually effective and not the worst compared to other manufacturers.
Bootloader Unlock
After OEM Unlocking, flashing TWRP through ODIN is effectively unlocking the bootloader. This is possible on both exynos and snap.
Knox and RMM
While this is an inconvenience, from Samsung's point of view, it's worth it. It makes the phone look more secure in the eyes of potential customers. If you really wish for NFC payments, I'm still able to use GPay with Magisk on a custom ROM.
TWRP Recovery
TWRP is flashed through ODIN, not fastboot. Look up an actual guide before complaining.
Root
Yes you can
Stock ROM Flashing
The one thing I could agree on with you is Samsung disabling OTA updates when OEM unlocking. I don't see the point really, but you're free to flash whatever you want through ODIN. Downgrading shouldn't be an issue. Not sure what's up with that.
Before buying a phone, how about you do some research before crying on forums. As a power user coming from the Oneplus One, I don't regret going for Samsung in the least.

Thanks for your reply, I had dropped all hope after several attempts over last few weeks. Found this option and I was able to get past my blocking issue with TWRP and moved on.
https://forum.xda-developers.com/ga...er-development/g9650zhu6dta7-android-t4051751

I have G960F and have to admit I totally disagree with your original post. I've been using custom ROMs on nearly every phone I ever had and don't think S9 (G960F) is bad in terms of unlocking. Just did an OEM unlock, waited a week, flashed TWRP through Odin, booted straight to TWRP and immediately flashed a custom ROM from it (because a boot to the stock ROM would replace TWRP back with the stock recovery IIRC). In the end I got sick of all the problems with Magisk and non-working google pay that I went back to the stock ROM - making S9 the first phone I use with a stock ROM even though it can be flashed. I think it's a great phone for power users.
And as far as SIM unlock goes - Samsung is not to blame, the carrier the phone was made for (and purchased from) is. Phones that Samsung itself sells are unlocked. I wonder why there's still some countries where SIM locking remains legal.

This thread is a prime example of how people end up with bricked devices. So much misinformation in one page LOL

I had the 9650 and most of what I'm doing here is user error. This was one of the best devices I've ever owned. I mention of fast boot and such you obviously just do not know samsung devices. You can't blame samsung on your own ignorance

Huawei 20 mate lite soft bricked

Hi , soft bricked my Huawei Mate 20 lite. Model is SNE-LX1 HW/EU. Did a firmware upgrade to frp unlock Since then get black screen with yellow text saying a new OS has been installed and device reboots in recovery. Reinstalled already different firmware versions via sload SD card upgrade + use fastboot to unlock FRP code. Fastboot unlock command completes successfully and device does automatically a low level format to then come back to "different os installed message. Anyone advice ?

Hi phitilip, I can't help you on the bricked part (yet). I assume you tried to use Huawei Hisuite software to restore the original firmware so you could possible start over?
I recently got my Mate 20 Lite and haven't messed with it too much (yet!). I do have a question for you though. How did you get the bootloader unlocked? The only way I have found is to pay some random person/company for an unlock code. Trying to avoid that. By the way, I'm in the USA and also on SNE-LX1 with a 'global' designation.

djlman said:
Hi phitilip, I can't help you on the bricked part (yet). I assume you tried to use Huawei Hisuite software to restore the original firmware so you could possible start over?
I recently got my Mate 20 Lite and haven't messed with it too much (yet!). I do have a question for you though. How did you get the bootloader unlocked? The only way I have found is to pay some random person/company for an unlock code. Trying to avoid that. By the way, I'm in the USA and also on SNE-LX1 with a 'global' designation.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi , the unlock code I purchased was for the FRP unlock because I was told would solve my problem and although the code is correct and allows to do a factory reset it will not solve the "you installed a new software ..." message. When looking online I found that I probably installed the wrong region code firmware but tried everything and cannot get the phone to boot normally. Any advise would be very appreciated.

Can you get to recovery or download?

I'm much more familiar with Samsung devices so my frame of reference is there. How did you flash the new rom? What tool? Where did you get the rom from?
Since you can reset to factory, but that still gives you the error, the only way I can think of so far, with the very little experience I have with Huawei devices, is to find two things if you can. First try to find a 3rd party recovery like TWRP or CWM or possibly use the tool you used to flash the ROM. Flash that if possible to the recovery partition. Then find the original factory firmware for your device and region, even if you have to go beck to Android 9. Then from recovery, or the tool you used to flash new rom, flash that. I'll do some research and see if I can find anything you haven't. From my limited searching for my own Mate 20 Lite, there doesn't seem to be much out there. What's your objective in all of this? Are you just looking to root? Did Hisuite play any role in this? The good news is I have the exact same device as you so I can try some things while it's not bricked

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/...p30-pro-updated-on-03-12-2020.4032143/page-24 (this work is good.)